


An Encounter of the Intimate Kind

by KitaenSilva



Series: Gensokyo Encounters [2]
Category: Original Work, Touhou Project
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 18:45:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11834769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitaenSilva/pseuds/KitaenSilva
Summary: ((Please read Part One first!!))After making friends with a certain bookworm along the way to finding shelter and sustenance, unexpected recreational activity throws complications into the author's plans.More information and context can be found on the full series' page.





	An Encounter of the Intimate Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Preface notes in the works.

So, I was able to visit Gensokyo again. It's been months since my last visit, where I met Komachi and forged a new scythe for her. I learned at least a couple things almost immediately, though – when I “woke up” so to speak, I was still under the tree where I had napped with the shinigami before, but she was nowhere to be seen. I took this to mean that at least some amount of time did pass between now and my previous visit, but as for whether that time was hours, days, weeks, months, or even years was yet unknown to me. I also learned that a consecutive visit seemingly returns you to the spot where you left from your previous visit. I stood up and dusted off my backside, looking around at all of the spider lilies for a few moments, absorbing and enjoying the sight I didn't think I'd see again. I looked down at the ground. I was surprised to see my bag leaning against the trunk of the tree, so I knelt to inspect the contents.

My bag held a few library books I had recently checked out, as well as my clipboard, some notebook paper, some printer paper, a few snacks, my wine decanter, a mechanical pencil, my chopsticks, a spoon and fork, my deodorant, my headphones, and my mp3 player.

This stuff wasn't with me when I was here before, and it was all pretty mundane things to be bringing – some sort of defense probably would have been better – in fact, I usually have my wrench with me, so I wondered why it wasn't in my bag. I looked again and all I found that I didn't see before was a bottle of water. Strange, though, that I have apparently brought new items with me - especially since it's not like I sleep with my bag or contents… except when I fall asleep while waiting for something or someone else.

I shrugged, shouldered the bag, and looked around again to see if Komachi was anywhere within sight, then started down the road when I determined that she wasn't. I went in the direction of the human village this time – best to find a safe place to crash for a while, since last time I was here, I ended up staying for quite a few days before I found myself to be returning home.

The trip took a couple hours, and I saw a lot of things from the first time I visited. I was pretty exhausted by the time I made it to the village, and I was once again stopped at the gate by the guards. It was no surprise that they didn't recognize me – but this time they pretty much immediately assumed me for an outsider based upon my clothes and my bag. They directed me to go see Keine, so I nodded and thanked them, then entered the village. It was a bit more modern than I expected or remembered, but it was still kinda like walking into a theatre or museum village – everyone was busy contributing to life in the town and going about their own lives, and the entire town seemed like it was a page straight out of a history book. I tried to follow directions to wherever I was told to find Keine, but everything looked pretty similar and it was hard to actually get a sense of direction. None of the walkways were named, so I was just going wherever my feet took me. I eventually found the blacksmith from before, but when I went up to him and asked if I could stay again, he waved me off and said that he didn't want my sort hanging around his shop because it was bad for business. Mildly offended, I went off to check out more of the town - I went quietly and politely, but inside I was rather in a kind of huff. I later came across a bookstore, and decided to stop in and look around. Maybe I could exchange these books for a bit of mon – I figured that having a bit of local cash in my pocket would serve me better than a bunch of library books, and my experiences here were a bit more important than whatever consequences I may face back home due to missing books.

When I entered, I had to stop for a moment and let my eyes adjust to the dim light, but while I stood there, I heard a girl's voice call out.

**“Hello and welcome to Suzunaan! Can I help you find anything specific?”**

_ Suzunaan? That was familiar. I don't really remember what Suzunaan is, though... _

 

I stepped forward as my eyes continued to adjust, and responded.

**“Uh... yeah, I'm kinda new around here and I happened to have some books with me that won't be much use during my stay, so I was wondering if I might be able to exchange them for a bit of local currency.”** I said as I rummaged around in my bag nervously, not really intending to pull anything out, just distracting my hands and eyes simply so I could communicate.

She was quiet for a moment, probably contemplating what I had said. Then she spoke.

**“Huuuh!? Wait wait, you're an outsider right??”** she exclaimed, breaking the brief, contemplative silence.

**“Uh... I suppose so, yes. Assuming that this is Gensokyo, that is.”** I replied hesitantly - slightly taken aback by her exclamation.

**“Indeed it is! Ooh, lemme see these books of yours, this is important!”** she confirmed, and a shadowy blur approached me. I inadvertently backstepped a bit and waved my hand in front of my spectacles, squinting to try and regain some of my sight.

**“Well hold on a second, I can't really see yet. Trying to not cause a mess y'know.”** I said.

**“Ahaha, clearly. If you could see the shop you'd know it's already a mess, so don't worry about it. Come in, come in!”** A surprisingly soft hand grabbed mine and started to pull me into the shop. I tripped over barely visible stacks of books along the way. The figure in front of me seemed a bit small – I could tell that she was wearing a checkered dress – and that's when it hit me.

**“Ah wait, I know of you.”** I said, stopping in my tracks and slipping from her hand in the process as the realization occurred.

**“** **_DO_ ** **you now?”** she stopped and turned to look at me. There was no denying it now. The light, reddish hair, the checkered dress, the spectacles...

**“Yes. You're miss Kosuzu!”** I said, a light smile landing unbidden on my face as I gestured toward her. She brought her hand up to cover her lips in a gesture of shy surprise.

**“Oh my. Calling me a miss AND using my first name – you're a bold one, aren't you?”** she said, turning her head a bit but keeping her eyes directed toward me. They were unexpectedly a difficult shade of red or pink that caught my attention, but made me question if they were actually brown and making me  _ think _ they were reddish instead--

_ God dammit, pay attention. _

**“O-oh, sorry. Uh.. well, to be honest, there's a bit of a culture difference here and I kinda forgot that thing about using a person's first name...”** I stammered out as my brain got back on track.

**“Has the culture outside really changed that much?”** she said, lowering her hand and looking at me more seriously, her interest surfacing in her expression.

**“Yes – I mean, kinda? Maybe? I don't know. I'm not actually from Japan--”** I started to explain in several directions at once, then abruptly stopped, frustrated with the disorder of my head, as usual. I said enough to answer her question.

**“Oh! That explains the interesting accent. But if you're not from Japan, where ARE you from?”** she said, her curiosity clearly growing.

**“Uh... well, given the state of things from back when Gensokyo was sealed--”** I was going to explain that I wasn't entirely certain a person of my origins would be welcomed in Japan, let alone Gensokyo, but she seemed to read my mind and interrupted me, hoping to usher a more direct answer to her question.

**“Oh hush, that was then and this is now. Where you from dear?”** she said. The inclusion of a pet name caught me off guard and made me hesitate. I even unintentionally questioned it out loud.

**“Dear? Uh... well, I'm from the United States of America.”** I ended up giving her a direct answer anyway. I mentally shrugged.

_ Que sera, sera _ , I reminded myself.

**“Really!? What's it like over there??”** she stepped closer to me, her eyes practically ablaze with increasing curiosity at this point.

I felt like this could go on forever. It had slipped my mind that outsiders quickly became popular because they tended to bring new concepts and ideas to the bubble world.

 

_ I could answer questions until I was blue in the face and still not satisfy curiosity. _ I inadvertently let out a sigh as I thought this, and Kosuzu stepped back, quelling the fire in her eyes as she spoke again.

**“I-I'm sorry, you were here for something... what did you need dear?”** she said. This time she was the one bringing herself back on track.

Being called “dear” kept catching me off guard. It was weird.

**“Um..."** I had to think for a moment.  **"Oh. These books.”** I said, pulling them from my bag and showing them to her.

**“** **_How to Play – Shogi for Dummies?_ ** **”** she said, inspecting the covers and authors.  **“Huh. I know a certain wolf tengu who'd kill to get her hands on these--”**

I stopped listening as the implication hit me like a truck. The entire reason I had those books was because that “certain wolf tengu” inspired me to pick up shogi in case I had the luxury of encountering her. I wanted to not only be able to play, but entertain her with new pieces, moves, and developments from the outside world.

**“U-UM..! Miss Kosuzu! I uh... I think I actually have a use for those after all. I apologize!”** I said in a hurry, holding out my hand to receive the books. Kosuzu blinked in shock and surprise from my outburst, then a huge smirk crossed her lips.

**“Say, now that I think about it... for an outsider, you're** **_very_ ** **unusually knowledgeable on Gensokyo and her residents...** **_aren't_ ** **you?”** she spoke as though withdrawing the curtain in a magic show to reveal some trick. My thought processes tripped over themselves as they debated whether to be straightforward and honest, or to obfuscate and omit certain aspects of the truth for personal safety.

**“Eh? Uhm... yes – perhaps pridefully so, though that's not exactly a good thing. I may have some unfounded preconceptions here and there that I am trying to avoid, but the information I have and the things I have learned so far are actually lining up quite impressively.”** I blabbered, while trying not to boast or seem strange. My body apparently decided straightforward was the way to go. I mentally nodded my agreement with my body's decision. Honesty is good.

**“In your studies, you didn't happen to hear anything about a certain white wolf, did you?”** she inquired, a coy smirk and tone appearing with the advent of her question. I blushed, and her coy smile only widened, this fact not going unnoticed by her gaze. She took it as the affirmative response to her question, and asked another  **“The information wouldn't happen to tell you that she's... available... now would it?”**

I blushed much harder.  **“N-now none of that miss Kosuzu – it's not nice to tease guests!”**

**“Ha! I hit the nail on the head! Not bad for me – but you're practically an open book – ahaha!”** she said.

_ Did she... _

**“Did you just...?”** I started, but didn't feel the need to finish my question.

**“Make a book pun? Why of course! Did you expect anything less?”** she replied, finishing my question as part of her response.

**“Uh...”** , was all I could get out.

**“You should learn to** **_read_ ** **people a bit better.”** she said, poker-faced.

**“Ahaha-no, stop!”** I said, half-laughing as my face slipped into a smile. She grinned, apparently pleased that someone gets a kick out of her puns.

**“Eh? Ehhhh? No book puns? Well aren't you a bore – and you started out as a real...** **_page-turner_ ** **~”** She said, letting another one slip. This was grade-A dad-level material - and I loved it. Her grin widened into barely-contained snickering.

**“Pffhaha. Miss Kosuzu, please, you're too punny!”** I said, laughing with her. She grinned even more and pointed at me for my own pun.

**“Ey, you can't tell me to stop when you're making puns too!”** she said in the midst of her own laughter.

I was suddenly aware of the light spattering of freckles, like little stars, scattered across her cheeks and nose. It was hard not to notice them when she was smiling like this, but I didn't remember anything about Kosuzu having freckles. It was awfully cute, but it mostly made me wonder what other kinds of things about people here didn't quite translate into the stories and canon in the outside world stuff. Wondering about it allowed me to escape the merriment of puns.

**“Fair enough, ahaha.”** I said, also ending the abuse of puns.

**“So~! You've got a thing for Inubashiri, huh?”** She asked. I responded unwittingly, and she interrupted my response before it even fully left my face.

**“Ye-”**

**“I KNEW IT!”** she exclaimed in triumph.

**“Wha-HEY. Now that's not fair, you buttered me up with giggles!”** I crossed my arms. I wasn't really upset - Kosuzu was pretty fun. We hit it off surprisingly well – I already saw her as a proper friend, and I had only just met her.

**“Y'know, she can see you from this far away – including that blush of yours, silly man.”** she jabbed my side with a finger.

**“Ah!”** I instinctively covered my face with the book still in my hands and looked over the top at the windows. I realized that I was not in a position that was visible as she had claimed, and that I'd been had.

**“You're adorable.”** she said, half-sarcastically.  **“Here, hold on a sec.”** She toddled off to the back of the store, then came back with a sheet of card-paper and a pen.  **“Now, what should I tell her?”**

**“What- nothing! Of** **_course_ ** **nothing! I'll... see her and try to talk to her when I can on my own terms...”** I said, suddenly overcome with anxiety.

She started writing.  **“Hello Inubashiri-san! Would you go on a date with me, please?”** she said, as she wrote, in a tone that was as though she were writing down what I said - even though that wasn't what I said at all. And she was writing it in big bold letters.

**“No no no! What are you doing!?”** I approached her, not really sure what to do with my hands, just waving them around in my desire to insist that she not continue the sign. But the sign was already done. So she looked up at me, her coy smirk returning as she peered at me from over the top of her spectacles.

**“You need money, right? I'll make you a deal – if you go out behind the shop and hold this sign toward the mountain, above your head.. I'll pay you one-thousand mon.”** she said, lowering her gaze to look at me through her glasses instead of over them, her expression reading of something akin to blackmail.

**“I wo-”** I stopped in my tracks. She mentioned mon. I need mon. One-thousand sounds like a big number to me.  **“... How much does that translate to in dollars?”**

**“I don't know what a dollar is, but it's enough to feed most people for three months.”** she said matter-of-factly.

**“Holy shit. Uh...”** I looked at the sign.  **“She won't kill me, right?”**

**“She might, if she's in a bad mood – why do you think I'm offering a thousand mon? Of course there is risk involved.”** She said. A coy grin seemed to be permanently plastered on her face at this point. I started to wonder if she was evil. Even so... all possible outcomes of this were tempting – aside from the potential dying thing. I decided to roll with it.

**“Uh... Alright. Here goes, I guess...”** I said, taking the sign.  **“Which way to the back?”** She pointed, and I took the exit.

_ What the actual FUCK am I doing? This was not what I had in mind! Why am I even rolling with this!? Kosuzu is going to get me killed! _

While my brain was occupied with trying to rationalize what was happening, my hands had already raised the sign and directed it toward the mountain.  _ This is stupid _ , I thought.  _ How will I even know her answer _ \--

I saw blue light on the side of the mountain, about three quarters of the way up. No sooner had it caught my attention then a rapid succession of tiny blue orbs came from somewhere unseen and formed a symbol.

**“...い”**

I grabbed my pencil from my bag and replicated it on the paper that had been the sign.

**“...い“**

Another one. I copied the symbol next to the other one.

**“...え”**

I wrote this one down too. Then I waited to see if there were more. After several seconds, nothing happened, so I went inside and showed the symbols to Kosuzu.

**“No, huh?”** she said. She grabbed her pen and a new piece of paper writing again as she spoke what she put to paper.  **“Well, I have a present for you, will you at least come to receive it?”** She handed me the new sign.

**“Wait, she already said no--”** I started to object.

**“One-thousand and five-hundred mon.”** was all she said to interrupt me.

I shut up and went back out the door without another word, holding the sign up. A response came a bit later than the previous one, but it was still the same.

**“いいえ”** So... no. I returned inside – I was starting to feel very rejected and hurt by this. I was throwing my chance of friendship with the person I admired most right out the window. When I got inside, I simply shook my head. She waved her hand to have me come over, and was already writing another sign.

**“Ma'am, please...”** I said despondently. Two rejections in a row was enough. I was not up for a third.

**“What if I bring it to you... with some of Kosuzu's cookies? Aaaand...”** Kosuzu drew a big heart symbol in the bottom half of the sign before handing it to me.  **“This should do it~!”**

**“Ma'am...”** I tried to object again.

**“TWO-thousand mon. If she rejects you again, I'll double it and give you 1 ryo.”** she upped her ante to enough currency to feed a person for a full year if this didn't work out. She was literally betting the equivalent of a year's worth of food on this - a person doesn't bet that much unless they're  _ really _ confident that it's going to work out.

**“Why-”** I started, attempting to object a third time - this time because in addition to wanting to avoid a third rejection, I was uncomfortable with this much money being thrown around.

**“Go go go~!”** she said, not even giving me the time of day, and ran around the counter to push me back out the door.

I looked down at the sign before I held it up. It did make me a bit hopeful, I suppose - if she accepted, I would get time with Momiji, but if she rejected, I was apparently getting enough food for a year, so it was kinda win-win at this point. I looked up at the mountain where her previous two rejections had come from. I looked at the sign one more time, grinned over the silly heart, then raised it above my head. And then I waited. Her response was a long time coming, and I almost gave up and simply turned around to leave without a response, but just as I lowered the sign with a surely heartbroken expression, another set of symbols came from the mountain.

 

**“...は”**

 

Pause.

 

**“...い”**

 

Kosuzu's loud voice from behind me caused me to start in terror.

**“Oooooh, she wants you to go to her! Haha, you're in luck!”** she exclaimed, slapping my shoulder in congratulations.

I simply turned to look at her. I was having a hard time processing the situation.

**“Aren't** **_you_ ** **the one in luck? I'm half tempted to ask for that ryo just over how much life I've surely lost over this.”** I said in a rather cynical tone.

**“N-now now, let's not be greedy...”** She said, and paled a little. Amusingly, it made her freckles stand out.

**“...You don't have that much, do you?”** I posited.

**“I-I said nothing of the sort! And look, you have a date with the beautiful Inubashiri-san~!”** she said, deflecting the subject.

I simply stared at her. I wanted to be happy, but I felt like I was being used somehow.

**“Well... thank you for that. Though... why are you doing this?”** I asked her. I didn't really expect her to unveil her motive, but she answered readily.

**“Let's just say that I have a good feeling about you, and I think she needs a bit of that in her life. I'm sure you already know that she's pretty high-strung and serious... so maybe you can get her to relax.”** she said, and her coy smirk returned.

**“Wha-. . . miss Kosuzu!”** I said, at first not understanding her jab, then catching the implications.

**“Ehe~”** She simply stuck her tongue out at me.

**“You just played matchmaker while barely knowing who I am, and you're already saying I'm supposedly just what she needs?”** I asked, my voice laden with skepticism and disbelief.

**“Remember, I'm a book store owner – I can tend to get a good read on people, and you're practically an open book.”** she said, taking on the air of a wise sage and shaking her finger at me like an elder.

**“Pfft. Heh, you and your book puns. I really shouldn't be so surprised that you and I get along.”** My mood was immediately lifted by the silly woman.

She stuck out her tongue again, then disappeared into the shop. I looked back up at the mountain. Would she actually be what I hoped? Momiji must have seen my questioning stare – she sent up a question mark. I smiled and waved my hand to show it was nothing to worry about – I felt my attitude change to excitement as it started to set in that I was going to get to see her. She sent up another set of symbols.

**“また明日ね?”**

I nodded merrily in the direction of the mountain, and never bothered to question how or  _ why _ I understood what she was asking, I simply understood that she was asking if she would see me tomorrow… wait… that meant she was looking forward to meeting me? Then I had a thought – maybe she was just looking forward to Kosuzu's cookies. I gave it all the benefit of the doubt, and rushed into the shop – as I did, I realized something else.

**“Kosuzu! I need better clothes for tomorrow!”** I called out as I entered

**“No kidding – already sent for the tailor, she'll be here soon! Come help me with these cookies.”** she responded from elsewhere in the building.

**“Cookies? Oh, right.”** I said, and wandered into other rooms until I found the kitchen. She was already wearing a new apron and partially covered in flour by the time I got there.

**“You'd think you were trying to bake** **_yourself_ ** **with how much flour you've got on you.”** I joked, gesturing at the copious amounts of flour all over the front of her.

**“Huh?”** she said, looking down at herself.  **“Oh. Well of course, why do you think my cookies are so sweet? They've all got a little bit of me in 'em! Here, you sound like you're jealous, so let's fix that.”** she said, dipping her hand into the bowl and throwing a handful of flour on me before I could react.

**“What.”** I simply stood there, somewhat dumbfounded over the fact that I just had flour thrown at me.

**“Hey, what's your name, outsider?”** she inquired.

**“Eh? Oh, uh...”** I paused. I almost said my pen name out of habit – I've grown to be more associated with it than my birth name. Although, if it's easier, I may as well use it. No-one here to tell me otherwise, so why not?  **“Just call me Kit, please.”**

**“That's not your real name.”** she immediately called my bluff.

**“Wha- how do you know that?”** I said, surprised into admission.

**“Open.”** she threw more flour at me.  **“Book.”** She threw yet another handful.

**“Will you stop that!?”** I said loudly, throwing my arms at each cloud of flour that was sent in my direction.

**“Nope~!”** predictably, she threw more flour. I tried to dodge and duck behind the counter, but flour tends to go in unpredictable directions, so I ate a faceful of it anyway.

**“Blech!”** I tried to wipe it from my mouth using my sleeve. It didn't help.

**“What's your** **_real_ ** **name?”** she inquired, much in a way that an interrogator might question a suspect.

**“What if I don't want to use it because I like the idea of having a new name and new lease on life here, where what I was in the past doesn't follow me?”** I suggested.

**“That's fine and all, I just want to know because I'm curious.”** A trickle of flour fell on me from above. Then a torrent followed. She was pouring the bowl out on my head.

**“Alright alright! My name was** [omitted for privacy] **, okay! I'm not fond of it! Just stop assaulting me with flour!”** I said loudly, waving my hands above my head to deflect a portion of it.

**“Okay, but I'm not assaulting you with it. This is me assaulting you.”** She said, and a familiar shaking sound came from above me. I felt something like sand falling into my hair. I would have looked up to see, but the granular substance would have gotten in my eyes, and I didn't feel like being blinded – nevertheless, I knew what was being shaken into my hair.

**“WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SEASON ME WITH SALT?”** I accused.

**“Ahahaha! I'm as-** **_salt_ ** **-ing you!”** she replied, laughing merrily.

**“Jesus christ.”** I said, and tried to escape the kitchen before I was drawn into a bout of laughter from her puns.

**“Hey! Hey, no escaping! You're going to help me make these cookies for your girlfriend!”** she quickly said as I made to leave. I stopped and turned around to face her at her last word.

**“What, she's not my girlfriend, and you set this whole thing up anyhow.”** I said.

**“She said yes, didn't she?”**

**“Well...”**

**“Then stop complaining and get over here.”**

**“Stop throwing flour and salt on me, then I will.”**

**“What about sugar?”**

**“Sugar too.”**

**“But then you'll taste nice and sweet for when you--”** she said, her voice laden with a tone that said she was about to unleash innuendo - or worse.

**“NOPE. NOPE. DON'T GO THERE, YOU.”** I said, and threw my torso over the counter island to try and cover her mouth with my palm. She roared with laughter and stepped away, flicking a spoonful of sugar at me as she did so, and used the spoon to scoop up a bit of butter from the other counter behind her.

**“Hwaahaha! I'm just trying to** **_butter_ ** **you up!”** she said. I saw it coming, she knew I saw it coming, and successfully predicted that I would try to duck below the edge of the counter, so she aimed low and launched the butter pat at me. It landed square on the lens of my glasses just before I hit the floor. I couldn't contain it any longer. I laughed as I pulled myself back up off the floor, using my finger to wipe away what I could of the butter.

**“Kosuzu, you're going to be the death of me, I swear. I've only been here for a few hours!”** I suddenly gave chase, dipping around the side of the counter as I grabbed the mixing bowl full of flour from off the island, preparing to pounce and pour it all over her.

**“Haha! A-and hey, I don't mind you using my first name, but you should** **_really_ ** **try to remember to not use someone's first name unless you're intimate with them.”** She giggled and tumbled to her backside, then lectured me as she turned around to face her punishment and hopefully deflect it with outstretched arms.

**“Sorry. Is it offensive?”** I stopped in my tracks, just short of landing right on her.

**“Not to me – you're a good person, so it's not a problem.”** She smiled up at me disarmingly. It almost worked.

**“Ohh, so you're fine being intimate with me?”** I said, and stuck my tongue out at her. Finally, a chance to return the teasing!

**“Eh!?”** she exclaimed, a fervent blush cropping upon her cheeks, almost hiding her freckles.

_ I wasn't expecting a serious reaction! I took it too far! _

 

I felt stupid and tried to backpedal, literally and figuratively.  **“I uh... I didn't mean--”** Given that my position could be taken as being dominant or aggressively pursuant, and possibly suggestive of more troublesome things, I quickly scurried away and tripped over myself, landing on my own backside in the process.

**“Ahaha, the look on your face!”** she interrupted my escape with a laugh and cheer, as she pointed at me and brought a hand to her midsection to emphasize making a fool of me. She had been leading me on, and turned my own troll against me!

**“You little...”** My hands raised up in a gesture of mild offense but concession of 'you got me good' – the bowl of flour was gripped between them, and I was prepared to propel the entire contents all over her, but contained myself and lowered the bowl, excitement from the moment of roughhousing fading. She stood up and dusted herself off, walking over to me.

**“Hey. I said that I didn't mind you being intimate with me already. You're a good person.”** she said, looking at me as I continued to sit on the floor.

**“Eh?”** now it was my turn to blush. I automatically took 'intimate' in a sexual direction. I mentally chided myself, but then she took the trolling a step further.

**“You wouldn't do anything untoward to little ol' me, would yooou~?”** she said, and batted her eyelashes at me, tucking her hands under her chin.

**“Uh.”** I said, buying myself a moment to think.

**“Hmmmmm...?”** Her smile became very coy.

**“Well...”** I started, once again buying a bit more time to think. Her tone and actions screamed that this was a loaded question. I needed to pick my words very, very carefully.  **”That depends on the circumstances.”**

Her smile disappeared. I needed to explain, apparently.  **“...Eh? What do you mean?”**

**“I thought you could read me like an open book~”** I said, hoping to lighten the mood with a small joke before getting to my explanation.

**“Mean.”** She said, and grinned with proper amusement, then blew a raspberry and turned to get back to cookies. I chuckled, then went ahead with explaining myself, maintaining my seat on the floor, watching her through the one lens that wasn't smeared with butter.

**“In all seriousness.... You just set me up on a date with someone I admire a lot. If not for that, well.... Let's just say I haven't had... that sort of fun in quite a long time, and I happen to like you. Normally I avoid that sort of thing like the plague, but you're rather comfortable to be around, so I guess I wouldn't mind so much.”** I felt weird saying this sort of thing in such an honest and straightforward fashion, but I had decided that straightforward was how I intended to interact with her, so I guess this was a continuation with that. Her expression made an instant change to one of surprise and a blush sprung upon her cheeks. This was different from a few moments ago, and I could feel just how genuine the reaction was this time.

 

**“A-ah... that's not what I expected at all.”** her playfulness was replaced with genuine shyness as she diverted her gaze. Her hands went up to her cheeks, and she couldn't bring herself to look at me for more than a split second at a time, though she was trying to obtain eye contact.  **“Do you actually find me that... um… enough that you would really want that of me…?”**

I shrugged, being casual and nonchalant. It made me feel much more comfortable about responding in such a forward manner.  **“Well sure. We get along really well, I like your personality a lot, and we have lots of fun. Looking pretty is just a bonus on top of that, I feel. I mean, I would like it very much if we could get to know each other more… if it means we're comfortable with that, then--”** Suddenly she interrupted me.

**“P-** **_pretty_ ** **? You jest!”** She appeared to be completely shocked – almost offended, even. She looked down at herself and started to jabber.  **“I'm too small, my face is too baby-like, my hair is thin and brittle, I don't know how to use makeup, I'm lazy...”** she just kept prattling on, looking for more negative things to say. This time it was my turn to interrupt - I wasn't going to let someone this cute belittle themselves like this.

**“Your bookish side is showing.”** I said. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to say. I guess it was in response to her un-ironically using the word 'jest' in casual conversation. My hand included a half-assed pointing gesture with my statement. I suddenly felt awkward, but continued to play it casual.

**“A-ah!?”** she exclaimed, and contorted herself a bit to turn and look at her backside, making sure that her skirt covered it. Apparently that's approximately where she perceived that I had pointed.

**“Wha- Kosuzu, no. I meant that you used.. oh never mind. And yes, pretty. But again – you set me up on a date, and I plan to make good on that. So don't get too hot and bothered.”** I finally got around to ending my explanation, even if it was a bit of a mess.

**“Hot and bothered...?”** she said, and turned from straightening her skirt over her backside to look at me inquisitively.

**“It means... excited.”** I said simply.  _ Well.. sure, that's one thing it means. _ I noticed something happening between her and I. It should have remained a thought and never been said aloud.  **“Look, this sexual tension is turning into textbook rom-com shenanigans, and neither of us should do anything rash, so let's just finish these cookies.”** I said bluntly, using my own statements and tone to interrupt the fact that I noticed myself unconsciously sizing her up for a bit of spontaneous rough-and-tumble. That's not a direction I wanted things to go, especially not right now. I knew she was quite a bit older than she looked, and she definitely had an attractive and bubbly personality, but it wasn't an excuse. I shook my head and finally stood from the floor, dusting myself free of salt, sugar, and flour.  **“Also, I make you responsible for gently cleaning the buttery residue from my glasses. I can't see without them, and until that's gone, I can't see with them either.”** I said, taking them off and holding them out in the general direction of the blur that represented Kosuzu's last known location. I was coming off as a lot more gruff than I wanted…

**“U-uh, yes, of course. Sorry about that, I kinda got um... carried away.”** she said quietly and stepped forward to take them from me. Her tone was already indicating that she felt bad about the situation.

**“We both did. And it almost led to something that while fun, would probably have been regretted in the morning.”** Words were just tumbling from my face at this point. I was talking just to quell my mind, really, but I was  _ really _ starting to wish that my mouth would stop flapping.

**“Y-yes.”** She said, her tone becoming apologetic and on the brink of depression as the sound of water came from nearby.  **“Though I wouldn't have regretted it, really... I'm not very popular here, so it's nice to know that someone thinks that way about me – I'd honestly rather take advantage of it if I can, you know...?”** she said, almost inaudibly, and probably trying to hide her mumbling beneath the sound of water.

**“...What?”** I didn't mis-hear her, I knew exactly what she said. What I was questioning was the reality of it. What started as a joke and some playfulness became very serious, very quickly.

**“N-nevermind! I was just talking to myself!”** she spoke up in a manner that implied she wasn't going to stand for prying.

**“Oh... uh... Okay.”** I wasn't going to press it - I knew better. Besides, I had decided to see this upcoming date through from start to finish. I couldn't ruin that by doing something rash, and at this point I realized that if I kept talking, I'd end up in bed with Kosuzu.

_ Maybe if things didn't fare so well with Momiji… _

I shook my head. That was [definitely] not a good line of thought to play around with under these circumstances, holy shit! I steeled my heart and mind. I was  _ going _ to see Momiji. I was going to bring her a gift and do everything I can to bring her happiness. I was worried about her, really – if she was as stressed out and high-strung as Kosuzu said, she might end up ill. I was all too familiar with being so stressed out that you end up sick. Besides… it was  _ Momiji _ .

**“Here.”** I heard her say from somewhere nearby - not that I could see where exactly “here” was. I just held my hand out, assuming she was handing me my glasses again - sure enough, they landed in my palm, and I quickly put them on. When I blinked a few times to regain focus, I looked at Kosuzu. She seemed very despondent.

**“What's the matter?”** I asked, instinctively.

**“H-huh??”** her melancholy expression disappeared behind a metaphorical mask.  **“What do you mean? Nothing's the matter~”**

I gave her a look that said  _ I know better than that, I wear the look myself often enough to be well acquainted. _

She just grinned, maintaining the facade.  **“W-we have cookies to make...”**

**“Uh... will you tell me what's up?”** I tried again.

**“There's nothing to tell, silly~”** she said, taking up position at the messy counter and starting once again to portion ingredients for cookies. She was going to stonewall me. Admittedly, this was a little upsetting. Maybe I said something that upset her…. If she won't say anything right now, I'd have to use my actions to make it up to her and apologize when she was feeling a bit better.

**“Hm.”** I mused, standing next to her.  **“In that case, what do you want me to do?”**

**“I...”** she started to say, looking up at me with eyes full of some emotion I wasn't quite able to wrap my head around, then quickly looking away when she saw that I was looking to her for instructions.  **“U-uh... find me a whisk, please. There should be one in the drawer over there.”** she pointed to a drawer on the other side of the kitchen, beneath some crockery.

**“Sure thing.”** I said, walking over to look and find what she requested. I rummaged through the drawer for a moment to try and locate this whisk, but it quickly became apparent that it wasn't there, so I turned to tell her that... but she was gone.  **“Kosuzu?”** No response. I straightened and went to look elsewhere, calling for her. I had gone through most of the house and shop already, without a trace of her. It started to feel awkward, being in someone else's house by myself, so I stepped outside and looked around. Just as I got outside, the door closed behind me, and a lock twisted into place. Kosuzu's voice came through the door.

**“I'm sorry...! I just... really... can't have you here right now. I need to relax and clear my head a bit, so.. maybe come back later...”** she said anxiously.

This was somewhat unexpected. Though I felt that I understood her reasoning, even if I didn't explicitly know what it was.  **“Uh... okay... Sorry for troubling you...”** was all I could say.

**“No... it's my fault, really – just... go for now...”** she said, and I heard her feet slowly starting to walk away.

**“Yes ma'am… I'm really sorry.”** I said, and turned to walk away, putting my back to what I was certain was a failed friendship. I paused when her voice chased after me.

**“I'll... find you, or something.”** she said faintly through the wax paper door, then I heard her footsteps rush away as she ran on the polished wood.

_ She'd find me? Why would she come to look for me after this? _ But it was the last half of her statement that my brain latched onto.  _ Or something _ , she said. I'd heard that before… and many times, at that. It meant that I needed to go find somewhere else to settle down and shelter in, and that she was trying to make it easier on me by giving me a small hope that she may or may not be there at some indeterminate point in the future. So with a sigh, I discarded the notion of seeing her again on amicable terms, then turned and left Suzunaan behind, roaming the village once more.

 

= = = = =

 

I kept at this for a long time – searching the village, asking the occasional friendly-looking resident for directions or potential places to stay for the night. By the time the sun had set, I had come to the conclusion that a gaijin like myself wasn't exactly welcome, so I prepared to leave the village and claim a spot under a tree not far from the village walls. I set my bag down against the trunk of precisely such a tree once I had found a suitable one, and set down to lean against it and get comfortable. Felt like a long day – lots of aimless wandering around town, and I never really accomplished anything, not even what I had originally set out to do in regards to shelter and safety. To the contrary, pretty much the entire village had shunned me for one reason or another.

**“Should put a sign up at the gate. Human Village – Welcome, only if you're Asian and not a youkai!”** I scoffed aloud.  **“May as well get a move on with the whole becoming a youkai thing I guess – can't live in the human village, may as well at least have the strength and means to survive outside of it.”** I slouched and got comfortable, preparing to close my eyes and try to get some sleep. I heard a jingle of bells from the other side of the tree.

**“You're really going to give up your humanity...?”** came the voice of Kosuzu from the direction of the bells.

**“Hmm..?”** I sat up a bit and looked around the trunk of the tree, and came face to face with the bookworm in the midst of her own movements to crawl around the trunk of the tree on her hands and knees.  **“Wha..!? I uh…”** My jaw went a little slack as my brain tried to wrap itself around the fact that she really  _ had _ come to find me, trying to piece together  _ how _ she had found me, and what exactly had possessed her to make true on the last thing she had said to me earlier.

**“Why would you want to become a youkai?”** she said, worried. My jaw collected itself, my brain set aside the questions, and formulated the answer to her inquiry.

**“Eh – I may as well be a youkai already. In case you weren't following me all day and seeing for yourself just how I was treated, I'm sleeping outside of the village because a gaijin like me is 'bad for business' or 'bad luck'. Nobody wants me around. I figure that at least I'll be more likely to** **_survive_ ** **out here if I'm a youkai.”** I said as I was returning to my comfortable position with my hands and arms crossed beneath my head as I leaned upon my bag. She was silent for a moment, but a glance into my peripheral showed that she hadn't moved, and was just looking down at my face with a quizzical expression.

**“I don't think you're bad luck [or] bad for business. Actually, I came to find you so I could bring you home...”** she said, her volume getting lower and lower as she spoke.

She wanted me to go back? Given that she's already evicted me from her home once today, she must have meant that she was going to bring me back to my home. I wasn't ready to leave.  **“Hm? If it's not a bother, I would like to enjoy Gensokyo for a while longer. I mean, I'll go if it's necessary, but... it's better here than out there.”**

**“Even though you've been shunned by most of the village, it's still better than the outside world??”** She seemed very surprised that I would imply things as being so bad beyond the Great Hakurei Kekkai.

**“Well, yeah. Everything has become so convoluted and corrupt out there that I can't stand it anymore.”** I replied with a shrug and a nonchalant gesture. Her next statement showed that the previous inquiry was just a tangent, and she was returning to the previous conversation to clear up the misunderstanding .

**“Oh... well, I didn't mean** **_send_ ** **you home anyway - I have no idea how to do that... I meant I'm taking you back to** **_my_ ** **home. Well, your home too if you want...”** she said quietly, like she wasn't entirely sure of her decision. I contemplated this for a moment.

**“I don't want to impose on you, Kosuzu. I really appreciate the offer, but... if everyone else in the village has turned me away, it might cause you problems if you keep me around, y'know..?”** I said, not actually wanting to turn her down, but at the same time, not wanting to cause her more problems than I apparently already have. My hand gestured the offer away as I spoke.

**“I don't care. My friend needs a place to stay, and I have room for him, so it would be terrible of me to not give you that much.”** she said firmly. I heard the sound of her dress rustling as she came the rest of the way around the trunk of the tree to sit on her knees in front of me, her eyes pointedly directed deep and stern into my own.  **“I want you to stay.”** It took a moment for what she was saying to properly register in my head.

**“....Eh?”** I sat up and raised my brow. Even though night had fallen, I could still see her quite clearly just from the light of the moon filtering the landscape. She wasn't going to back down from this, no matter what I had said. She'd probably never be able to live with herself is something happened to me after having kicked me out like she did earlier, so I conceded defeat and elected to take her offer.  **“Well, if you insist, and you're really okay with it...”**

Her face brightened.  **“Thank goodness... I was worried you would be much more upset with me because of what I did earlier...”**

**“You mean the thing with locking me out for being worried about you and where you'd gone?”** I said, a bit more sternly than I intended.

She grimaced and looked at her knees, and was slow with her next two words. **“Y-yes, that.”** She looked back up, but her gaze was directed over my shoulder.  **“So you** **_are_ ** **upset after all...”**

**“Maybe I was a bit at the time, but I am not now.”** I said.

She fidgeted with her hands between her knees.  **“And... I needed to get you out for different reasons, I'm very sorry. You really didn't do anything wrong...”**

**“I don't really mind that much, but you could have at least** **_asked_ ** **me to leave instead of making me think I'd done or said something wrong... I'm not so unreasonable as to refuse to vacate a property I am a guest on.”** I sighed and scratched at my scalp.

**“Even so, I didn't want you to ask me why...”** She looked away for a moment, then her gaze locked onto mine.

**“Then you can simply say 'I don't want to tell you why, but...' and then asked me to leave. I wouldn't pry into my friend's business.”** I said.

**“W-well I had no way of knowing that at the time...”** she looked away again.

**“In any case, it's still not a problem. I'm not upset.”** I assured her.

She edged closer, and a moonbeam fell upon her face as it bore through the leaves above, highlighting her freckles. The corners of her eyes looked rather red and sore, but her cheeks were aglow with a deep blush.  **“You're really not..?”**

**“Of course not. Relax.”** I sighed, and leaned back against the trunk of the tree, taking my own advice and relaxing.

She leaned forward onto her hands, lifting her backside from her seat and setting herself over me in my reclined position. If she moved any more, she'd be practically on top of me.  **“Truly...?”**

I gave her a standard fare INTJ stare that comes with a lack of fondness for repeating myself to assuage someone – lowering my head and peering at her from over the top of my glasses.  **“Kosuzu. Do I look like I'm upset?”**

**"U-uh... a bit... but... I think I can tell that you're not..."** She smiled my stern stare away in her relief, and used the excuse to crawl forward a step and push herself onto me proper, gingerly setting her backside upon my thighs. I wasn't expecting this, but my body must have been more prepared for it than my mind was, because I was somehow able to keep relaxed, and didn't attempt to instinctively avoid her advance. I noted that she was a bit thicker than she seemed under her frilly checkered dress and apron – one might get away with describing her as slightly chunky, even. It was an incredible surprise – and not just due to the unexpected intimate contact… she was a normal person, with a normal weight and figure, once again pushing my conceptions of Gensokyo's residents quite far away from my expectations. She was very warm and soothing – comfortable to be around, and even this unsolicited advance wasn't awkward in the slightest. In fact... she was starting to seem very attractive. But then a new sort of problem came up as a result of the intimate contact with her, and just as she spoke, no less.  **“N-not** **_upset_ ** **... I suppose... but...”** She said, this new problem giving her cause to shift a bit in the seat she had claimed upon me, making matters worse.  _ Much _ worse.

**“U-um... Kosuzu...”** I said hesitantly, not sure what to make of the situation, nor how to verbally approach it.

**“I know...”** she simply shifted again – she was doing it on purpose, acquiring a specific sort of position for a specific sort of reason. This was not good.

**“Kosuzu, really... we should.. uh..”** I started to speak again, but Kosuzu, with position decidedly acquired, pointedly slid forward against me, declaring her want by applying unmistakably intentional pressure in a very specific manner. I tried  _ really _ hard to keep my cool and maintain casual composure.  **“...Uh... you were saying uh.. that you were taking me home...?”** I said, hoping to divert attention and combat my waning resistance – already my hands had found their own way to her hips, and they were torn between holding her still for prevention of further issue… and outright guiding her movements. I was near the point of becoming lost in her for the night. My anxiety started to escalate, which didn't help matters.

**“Mhm..”** was all she said, giving her hips a very certain rock as she leaned her torso against my own, bringing her nose to the side of mine, and letting her breath breeze across my lips. It was hot, and laden with moisture… bewitching, magnetic, and it felt like a kiss from a goddess of summer winds. I somehow, miraculously resisted the urge to bring my lips to hers… but only by moving my mouth in a different way, spewing words and distraction halfheartedly.

**“T-then why don't we go back home and get me set up with a space to sleep...?”** There's no way in hell I could take another movement from her... The message had already carried loud and clear – I knew exactly what she wanted, and she knew exactly how badly she was making me crave it.

**“Mm... are you sure...?”** she said, looking me square in the eyes in a way that said she was reluctant to relinquish this golden opportunity. My entire range of vision was enraptured by the soft red of her eyes, and the gentle fan of her lashes. I waited to see if she was going to do anything, but I thanked my lucky stars when it was apparent that she had elected to remain still.

**“Y-yes. I uh.... ahem.”** I said, and tilted my head toward where our midsections had become intertwined. She just smiled at me.  **“A-at the very least, uh... let's... not right this second, outdoors, under a tree, beyond the walls of the village.”** I smiled back weakly.

She coyly put a finger to the corner of her mouth and looked up at the stars that twinkled from between the leaves.  **“Mmmm, but maybe I'd like it this way? It's such a beautiful night...”**

**“K-Kosuzu...!”** I was growing desperate – if this situation didn't change… I didn't know what I would do.

**“Oh alright.”** she said, seemingly giving in. I sighed in relief, but just as I did so, she got in one last intoxicating movement, twisting her hips in a way that drove away my last intents to resist, and topping it off with a smile that said she knew exactly what she was doing. She lifted herself from me and took a step back to watch my reaction. All I could do was look up at her with base desire, the last of my resistance escaping as a single word.

**“....Shit.”** I said simply. It was all I  _ could _ say. She grinned broadly, knowing she had won. Her warmth was fading rapidly, but I could still feel her intent and want, sticking to me like glue from every inch of contact I had with her. I needed to regain it. So much for my earlier statements about not doing anything rash – I was taking this bookworm home, and I was going to satisfy her want – my want, too, at this point – one way or another. Possibly in  _ several _ ways or methods. She had staked her claim – I belonged exclusively to her for the night. Reluctantly, I stood from the ground, but she slipped her soft hand into mine and led the way. Much  _ less _ reluctantly, I followed her back to her home.

 

= = = = =

 

I woke up on the next morning exactly how you might expect. We never did set up a separate sleeping space for me to use, of course – we no more than returned to the shop and the clothes started coming off. Somewhere on the sales floor was my shirt and her apron. The kitchen had her dress strewn across the unfinished batch of cookie dough. The stairs contained my pants. Everything else survived the trip to Kosuzu's bedroom, but only barely. I groggily woke to the sun streaming across my face through the window, followed by the mental recollection of what had happened and where my belongings were all located. Kosuzu was still sound asleep, nestled cozily face down upon my chest and across the left half of my body – she was still warm and comfortable, so I just closed my eyes again and continued to relax with her.

 

It was quite some time before she woke up properly – and with a start, no less. She seemed horribly shocked that firstly, I was in her futon with her; secondly, that I was lacking my clothes; and finally, that her own clothes were absent. Before she even put anything together correctly, or allowed her brain the time to boot and recall last night...

 

She screamed. Loudly.

 

**“Ah! Fuck! Kosuzu, chill!”** I said over her hollering. It took a moment or two, but my reaction seemed to bring a proper memory back to her and her response changed drastically

 

**“Waaah!! K-Kit! I'm sorry!! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Ohhh god I'm so sorry!!”** she exclaimed, putting her hands over my ears as if that would un-do the damage, then covering her mouth in much the same way when she realized that covering my ears post-scream would do no good. Her arms lowered only slightly when she realized that covering her mouth was just as futile.  **“Ohh no... what have I done...?”**

 

**“Well for starters, you did things I'd never in a million years expect you to do.”** I said, causing her to immediately blush and pull the duvet over her head.  **“And secondly... you were right. I don't regret any of it.”**

 

**“A-ah... you need to stop..! This is serious! Well... it was amazing; but this is very bad! You have a date today! I can't believe I did this! I can't believe you LET me do this!”**

 

**“To be fair, you were** **_really_ ** **persuasive and I** **_did_ ** **try to talk my way out of it. But you just kinda did the thing with your hips on me and I couldn't tell you no.”**

 

**“S-shh! Don't describe any of it! None!”** she said loudly, clamping her hands over my mouth. Her voice lowered to a whisper, not that it mattered what with all of her shouting and screaming.  **“We didn't even finish the cookies!”**

 

**“Mrrf mfffn mrf.”**

 

**“What?”**

 

I pulled her hands away from my mouth.  **“So let's make them now.”**

 

**“Oh uh... yes, of course. You need them.”** she sat there and stared at me.

 

**“...”** I waved my hand in front of her face.  **“Kosuzu?”** I asked. She rocked from side to side as she spoke.

 

**“Haaah.... I need more. You.... you just... did that... and** **_that_ ** **… and then you mentioned it just now...”** she murmured almost drunkenly, moving toward me in complete opposition to her concern for today’s arrangements from barely even a moment ago.

 

**“Kosuzu. Stop thinking about it. Calm down--”** I said, but was interrupted as her soft hands firmly gripped my shoulders.

 

**“No, no... seriously. Again. Now. Right this minute. I don't even care that it's morning, or that you've only been here for a night... I need it. I need** **_you_ ** **. You made me think about it and you got me excited again. Help me take care of it before you end up out of my reach...”** She had an almost craven tone in her voice as she pushed herself against me. I wasn't going to argue – not that I really could or wanted to, what with her having pushed me down to the futon and positioned herself for what she sought. I was confident that I could make Kosuzu happy for the time being, but I had no way of knowing what would happen later… so I accommodated for the opportunity, and let the bookstore owner have her way with me once again – and I enjoyed my time with her in kind.

 

= = = = = 

 

By the time we had finished, it was midday. Her hair was a mess. My hair was a mess.

 

**“Just thinking about more makes it hurt... too sore.”** she breathed finally, her arm flopping against the wooden floor off the edge of the futon as she worked to catch her breath.

 

**“Sorry. I probably should have stopped.”** I replied, just as exhausted.

 

**“Don't you dare apologize, it was everything I hoped it would be, and much more. I can't manage to finish more than once on my own, but you.... you just kept going...!”** She seemed to be bragging to herself, but what she said made me blush. In truth, I was actually having trouble during our rough-and-tumble – if it wasn't one thing, it was another, be it an uncomfortable angle, lack of rhythm, or loss of steam due to distraction, puns, laughter, and even a random conversation about politics as weird as that sounds. Despite that – or perhaps  _ because _ of that, rather, I thought it was all very fun. I truly didn't feel regret or worry – it felt natural and comfortable, like there wasn't a thing wrong or out of place about what we had done. I also took both the night prior and this engagement in a very careful manner so as to not leave Kosuzu with an untimely consequence for what was meant to be recreational intimacy. Despite what happened, however, I couldn’t see Kosuzu in a romantic sense - we were friends whom had taken to intimacy for relief, as far as I was concerned, though the cultural implications and associated shame would not occur to me until much later.

 

**“Do you feel better..?”** I asked.

 

**“Better? I feel** **_amazing_ ** **. What about you?”**

 

**“Mhm..~”** I said. My stress had long ago melted and been washed away by Kosuzu's delicate sweat.

 

**“I'm sorry though...”** she suddenly apologized out of the blue.

 

**“Wha-?”**

 

**“I've only known you for a short time... we're only friends, never even been on a date, and I let my drive get the better of me... twice. That… and… even though I knew about your interest in someone else, I still…”** she sighed and looked down at herself, and the faint shine of sweat still on her soft skin.  **“It was horrible and selfish of me…”**

 

**“None of that. Here, look at it this way... I’m not** **_in_ ** **any sort of relationship nor have any guarantee of one, and we really,** **_really_ ** **needed it. We probably still need it-”** I tried to assuage her before she interrupted me – I had felt a pang of worry that perhaps she wasn't as confident or comfortable with the decision as she let on.

 

**“Nooo no no. Nope. Nuh-uh. You have my delicate little spine all sore and worn out, and it needs time to recover.”** She said, rolling her head from side to side as  a sensation of merriment permeated every fiber of the cute and sweet bookworm sitting upon the futon beside me.

 

**“Did you just refer to your-”**

 

**“Yep.”** A grin started to appear between her rosy cheeks, and her head stopped rocking, her eyes directed toward me.

 

**“- as a spine?”**

 

**“Sure did.”** She said, huge grin spreading further across her face as she pushed herself up from the futon.

 

**“You cheeky little--”** I said, sitting up as well and preparing to capture her in a silly embrace, maybe roll around with her for a bit.

 

**“Hey, you told me you liked little last night, so no complaining about it!”**

 

All I could do was sigh as my arms wrapped loosely around her shoulders. She was right as rain again, and right back to her book puns. Still no clue what had her down in the dumps in the first place, though.

 

**“Hey.”** I said, looking at her cheery face. I wondered something as I did so.

 

**“Hmm?”** she responded happily. Did I give her what she wanted? Did she perhaps want something a bit more serious? A million questions flooded into my head, some I liked and wanted to ask, others I didn't and would have been afraid to hear the answers for. I elected to not ask anything.

 

**“We should probably clean up.”** I said, gesturing to her.

 

**“Ah! You're right..! It's starting to dry...”** she said, looking down at herself with a distant, wistful gaze. My eyes followed hers, crossing over her small but perky chest, stopping when my gaze hung up at the point between her thighs.

 

**“Let's get in the bath.”** I said, turning around and slipping out of Kosuzu's warm futon in a rush, both to subvert my desire and to get the jump on motivating myself into wakeful activity. Her head sharply turned to look at me.

 

**“T-together!?”**

 

**“Well, I didn't mean** **_that_ ** **, but sure, why not?”** I said plainly.

 

She turned bright pink, and squeezed her legs together.  **“I don't know...”**

 

**“After last night, taking a bath together makes you shy?”**

 

**“I don't understand either, okay? Let's just bathe separately.”**

 

I shrugged.  **“Suit yourself. You should go first – I can wait. While you're in, I'll gather our clothes.”**

 

Her blush faded, comfort returning to her.  **“Thank you. I won't be long!”** she smiled with a sort of smile only possible through the utmost happiness, and wrapped herself in the duvet, toddling out the door. I sat back upon the futon and contemplated what had happened. Before I really delved too deep into my thoughts, I considered two things.   
  
I had brought her happiness. The busybody bookworm had hardly stopped for a bare moment since I had met her, but there was always a very faint hint of melancholy under her bubbly cheer, clearly visible to my mind’s eye in hindsight. The sort brought about by a loneliness that is a direct result of feeling alone even when surrounded by people.  But just before she left a moment ago, she was filled to overflowing with pure, unadulterated joy, satisfaction, and happiness.

 

Just as importantly… she had brought me happiness likewise. Perhaps even more so - the sort of companionship and kinship I felt with her even though I didn’t know anything about her yet was enough to make me happy even on it’s own, but the knowledge that I had made her happy only fueled my own happiness. In this same breath, it dawned on me that I actually knew remarkably little about Kosuzu. I knew her first name, what she looked like, and that she worked at Suzunaan… but that was literally it.

 

I wanted to know more about the cute Kosuzu.

 

I looked around the room, and located my underwear, tossed aside last night. Once I spotted them I gingerly snuck my way across the room and retrieved them, pulling them on. I also located a hamper, and collected Kosuzu’s own undergarments to put them away for a washing - when I bent down to pick up her panties, however, I saw something I hadn’t seen the other night. They were bear-print. I shrugged and tossed them into the hamper, collected the hamper itself, then went to the door - which opened before I could touch it, revealing a duvet-clad Kosuzu. We were each as surprised to see the other directly on the other side of the door, but all we could do was grin and laugh.   
  
**“Sorry, I forgot a change of clothes! I also have something for you to wear when you bathe, but I’ll have to find it. I’ll bring it to you when I find it.”** she said merrily and wandered into the room, rummaging into a nearby closet for a flower-print dress and fresh undergarments.   
  
**“Okay, thank you very much.”** I said, then paused. Wait, she had clothes for me? But what about the--   
  
**“Ah!”** she exclaimed and stood up sharply from the closet, looking at me with an expression of somewhat horrified remembrance.

 

**“The tailor!”** I said, apparently finishing her thought with the thing I had also thought of.

 

**“I forgot!”** She said and bowed.   
  
**“No, don’t worry about it - we can get it sorted today. More importantly, if the tailor hasn’t been here, what sort of clothes do you have for me?”** I asked, genuinely curious.   
  
**“Oh, I have one of my father’s old yukata that should fit you rather well.”** She said, and turned back to the closet, rummaging around again.  **“I just… don’t know where it is right now. I don’t think it’s in here.”**   
  
**“Your father? Does he live here?”**   
  
**“Hm?”** she said, extracting herself from the closet once more to look at me.  **“Oh no, we have an actual house elsewhere in town. I just happen to have my own bedroom here because I spend so much time here at the store. No worries, my father isn’t going to show up and get angry or anything like that. He’s often busy running the forge on the other side of town.”** she smiled disarmingly.

 

**“Hm? Well, I’m not exactly worried about that, I was just curious. You’re old enough to fall for and bed whom you please, so yeah.”** I said. A thick blush sprung up on her cheeks. Something itched at the back of my mind, but I didn’t figure out what it was until after I woke up and sat down to write this entry.   
  
**“W-well if he doesn’t like** **_you_ ** **, then I can’t--”** she clapped her hands over her mouth, containing and blocking whatever the rest of her statement would have been.   
  
**“Eh? Can’t what?”** I said. She just shook her head vigorously. I scratched my head.  **“Well, if we just keep jabbering, you’ll never get a bath~”**

 

Her eyes flickered, and I could see a barely-contained quip of some sort rise in her chest, begging to be unleashed. She kept it contained, bundled the duvet around herself, and fled the room. I had myself a laugh, and I heard her snicker as she went down the stairs. I recalled that my pants were on those stairs, and that she had a knack for mischief.   
  
**“Hey wait, don’t hide my pants!”** I took off after her, and all I heard was a rolling laugh as she jumped the last of the stairs and thudded across the wooden flooring of the shop’s living space.  _ That girl… _

 

Of course, my pants were no longer on the stairs.

 

**“Kosuzuuuu!”** I called after her, and tried to retrace her steps. I heard a door slide closed as I reached the bottom of the stairs, and immediately knew that she had taken them with her into the bath. As I set the hamper down on the floor, I contemplated pursuing her into the bath to retrieve them, but decided against it - she already implied that she didn’t want me to intrude.  **“Gods damn it all…”** I cursed very quietly, and redirected my attention to finding my shirt. It was large enough to cover anything important - I wore shirts several sizes too large. Remembering it to be out on the sales floor, I wandered out to it and started looking around - it was pretty much just tossed aside, so I had to look for quite a while. The longer I looked, the more self-conscious I became - running around in just my underwear is not something I would normally do - so I practically jumped on it when I found it bundled up between two stacks of books. As I was dropping it over my head…

 

The shop entrance slid open.  **“Kosuzu-chaaan! Where are yo-”** called a somewhat familiar man’s voice. I froze. The voice stopped mid-word. I turned to look - all it took was a glance to recognize him as the blacksmith who’s forge I had borrowed while helping Komachi. He was staring at me in confusion and indignation. I was staring at him with my shirt half pulled on - it was very clear that the only other article of clothing I had on was my underwear. This did not escape him.   
  
**“YOU! What are you doing in here!?”** He thundered loud enough for the entire village to hear. He caught me off guard, so I jumped, then glared back at him and firmly thrust my shirt the rest of the way down to conserve dignity.   
  
**“Retrieving my shirt, sir. You?”** I replied, much more calmly that I wanted. I wanted to yell right back at him, but for some reason, my body didn’t cooperate with the whole desire to yell. However, it seemed to just make him more angry that I responded calmly.   
  
**“None of your business, gaijin! Get out of here!”** he roared.   
  
**“Pardon me sir, but I’m here by invitation.”** I replied, adding a curtsey for a candid jab at the rude man. Calmness seemed to be hot coals to his vitriol, so this time I was intentionally being calm.

 

**“And I’m telling you to get out,** **_invitation_ ** **or not!”** He shouted, and started to advance further into the shop in my direction.

 

Turning my back to him would be an issue for my health at this point, so I backstepped toward the door leading to the rear of the shop building. I heard a door slam open elsewhere in the building, followed by wet footprints slapping rapidly along the wood. The blacksmith lunged at me, just as Kosuzu inserted herself between him and I… while wearing nothing but a towel clutched to her chest. Her wet feet held no grip on the floor and she started to fall, certainly going to overshoot her intended stopping point.   
  
**“Kosuzu!”** I said, and latched my arms to her shoulders to steady her and keep her from slipping past.   
  
**“Kosuzu-chan!”** the blacksmith said, and stumbled to a stop just a few feet away.   
  
**“Father, stop!”** Kosuzu said, raising her tone at the blacksmith.   
  
**“Father?”** I quietly asked no-one in particular. Kosuzu turned to answer me anyway.   
  
**“Yes, this is my father.”** she turned to him.  **“Papa, this is Kit--”**   
  
**“I know who this gaijin is! He’s bewitched by youkai, doing unsolicited favours for them!”**   
  
I racked my brain for a moment.  _ Oh, right _ .  **“Komachi.”** my thought escaped my lips. Realizing that I had spoken what I was thinking, I simply continued.  **“Her name’s Komachi Onozuka, and I’m not bewitched by her. She simply needed a new scythe, and I made one for her. That’s the extent of it.”** I explained. I hadn’t really explained before, I had simply made it, and then disappeared. Kosuzu suddenly turned to look at me, wide-eyed.   
  
**“That was** **_you_ ** **!?”** She exclaimed. I was surprised by her tone - it was a thick mixture of emotions, primarily disbelief.

 

**“I uh…”** I looked at her, then her father, then back to her. He had apparently mentioned me, and word traveled. I suppose I was a very suspicious one-off occurrence, now that I thought about it. I looked to Kosuzu.  **“Yes. And I would enjoy explaining if you are open to listening. That was a series of very unusual circumstances, so I didn’t really think much of the potential impact of my actions.”** Her expression softened and clarified from brewing disappointment and upset into one of little more than calm curiosity. I then looked to Kosuzu’s father.  **“I’d also like to explain to you if you’re willing to hear - I have meant no harm to anyone, I assure you.”**

 

**“Start with why you’re running around a shop alone with my daughter in nothing but your underwear. And why she’s in her birthday suit.”** He said as he pointed at each of us as we were mentioned, obviously barely containing his desire to rip me limb from limb. Kosuzu replied first.   
  
**“I was in the bath when I heard you yelling at Kit, so I came running to try and stop it before things became any worse.”** she said, clutching her towel to her chest. It was only just now that I realized she hadn’t even bothered to fully wrap it around herself - she put enough importance on stopping an altercation that she sacrificed her own dignity and modesty…? I felt his gaze drilling into the side of my head as I was looking at Kosuzu, so I turned to give an explanation…   
  
Except I didn’t have one.   
  
If I offered the truth, he’d kill me for sure. If I lied, I couldn’t live with myself. While I deliberated, my mouth agape, Kosuzu replied for me.   
  
**“Since nobody else would take him in, I went out and found him sleeping under a tree outside of the village. So I brought him here. I wasn’t going to let him die out there!”** she said in an accusatory manner, clearly blaming him for all the trouble I went through.  **“Beyond that is hardly any of your business, but if you must know, he was preparing to bathe and have his clothes washed.”** She said it all so sternly, and with conviction. None of it was a lie, so I firmly approved. I simply looked at him. He looked back, his frown only deepening. He rounded on Kosuzu, which she very obviously didn’t expect.   
  
**“So why was he fishing his own shirt out from the books here? Why is the apron you usually hang up just haphazardly tossed over there, huh?”** he retorted, gesturing to the mentioned locations angrily. He was hardly a dumb man - surely he’s already figured it out. Kosuzu responded with a fury of her own.

 

**“That is a matter to be discussed between he and I, father. In that regard, I will expect of you a respect for my privacy as an adult and resident of this village.”** she said, her brows furrowing. Her father seemed deeply conflicted about this, and resorted to shooting me a terrible glare.

 

**“You, gaijin--”** he started, and Kosuzu grumbled at him loudly.  **“--I will feed you to the fish of Misty Lake if you’ve touched my daughter, do you understand!?”** he finished, angrily shaking his finger at my nose.

 

_ Must… resist…. urge….. don’t reach over and poke Kosuzu…. don’t do it…. don’t--!! _

 

Kosuzu latched herself onto my arm defiantly, beating me to the punch.

 

_ Oh lordy, no wonder she and I get along so well… _

 

The blacksmith appeared very, very conflicted by this. Kosuzu spoke before he could solidify what he wanted to say. She had dropped respect entirely at this point - she stood firmly defensive of her own interests, even against her father.   
  
**“You won’t have to worry about that -** **_I’ll_ ** **touch** **_him_ ** **, thank you very much. And** **_he_ ** **can touch** **_me_ ** **as much as he likes. Any** **_way_ ** **he likes.”** She said, intentionally making it clear to her father that she was accepting of romantic and intimate contact with the gaijin man she was presently attached to. She basically just admitted that if she hadn’t already, she at least  _ wanted _ to enjoy sexual activity with me. His face hardened and he responded immediately. 

 

**“And I am saying that if he does, he’s as good as dead. Furthermore, if you don’t remove yourself from him** **_right now_ ** **, I’ll revoke your access to the store!”** he replied plainly, putting his hands on his hips in triumph, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

 

Kosuzu looked appalled - disgusted even - that he would go this far. I hesitantly tried to remove my arm from her - this was far too much risk for me. I needed to leave before she made a life-changing decision with unpleasant consequences.

 

She gripped my arm firmly, like a vice. As much for her own sake as my own, as I learned when she next spoke with a wavering voice.   
  
**“I will not abide a man who is so overbearing in a woman’s life as to deny her the pleasure and pain of romance, to be considered my father. You will leave** **_my_ ** **store, or I pack up what belongs to me and pursue the life of a hermit.”** she said, firm with defiance, but uncertain of her words and direction. She was risking the most important thing to her on what may be little more than infatuation! This was terrible and stupid. I tried to pull away again - she held on harder, and it started to hurt my arm quite a bit. She wasn’t going to let me go anywhere at this point, so I attempted to voice my objections.   
  
**“K-Kosuzu, think for a moment, please… I want you to be happ-”** I stopped mid-sentence as she looked up at me, tears spilling across her cheeks. She knew exactly what the risks were and what she had said, and it was evident in her expression and her grip on my arm. She had already weighed the options and outcomes, realized that there wasn’t a happy ending to this conversation, and elected for salvaging the option which she figured had the highest chance for bringing her the most happiness. She inhaled deeply, then looked at her father as she exhaled.   
  
**“You are doing a terrible, horrible thing. You are trying to make me choose between my father and the man I have fallen for by holding my home and my beloved books hostage. Knowing that, you will surely know my response.”** she said sadly, and moved my arm to wrap across her shoulder and back, inserting herself against my side as a visual representation of her decision.  **“I will not abandon my books. I will not abandon love - even if the result is that it doesn’t work out very well. But I** **_will_ ** **abandon a selfish man saying terrible things to a grown woman for his own desires while completely ignoring her own.”** The more she spoke, the more I could feel it - my face was turning beet red. She was effectively saying that I had become her desire in the mere span of a day. I didn’t fully agree with this - but love works in strange ways. I would be a horrible, terrible liar if I said that I didn’t at least somewhat reciprocate her feelings after all that had transpired over the last two days. I had boldly shared the most intimately possible actions with this girl - she may have been incredibly assertive about chasing what she wanted last night and this morning, but I was just as much to blame. I had chased her lips with my own, appealed to her inner beauty, praised her outer beauty, and given her the opportunity and invitation to seize what it was like to revel in being a woman. I wanted her happiness, and I worked to give it to her - but beyond that… she also wanted  _ my _ happiness.   
  
While I was standing there, completely dumbfounded and lost in thought over my reflections, her father looked like she had just hit him with a ton of bricks. He was the visual epitomy of crushed and defeated. He clearly couldn’t bear the notion of losing his daughter - even simply to a man she loves, let alone on the permanent sense Kosuzu implied a moment ago - and to top it all off, she had made him realize the error of his actions and statements. But he was a proud, sturdy old man, and stubborn. His expression steeled, and he grit his teeth before spitting his next words.   
  
**“Fine. Then I’ll leave. Keep your damn store, your books, and your stupid foreigner boyfriend.”** he spat toward her, then he rounded on me.  **“And you, gaijin bastard… What I said still holds true. One wrong move when it comes to my daughter, and I’ll bury you. You see what she just did for you? Don’t you dare make her have wasted that. She just risked everything  - literally everything - for your sake.”** I nodded - the importance of what just happened definitely didn’t escape me.   
  
**“With all due respect sir, I do have to object - she didn’t do it all for me.”** I said, and nudged her forward a bit. She backed herself against me again right away.  **“It was just as much for her own sake, please realize.”** He opened his mouth to object and say something harsh, but his gaze caught his daughter’s. She was still contending with a flow of tears, she was still standing there with a soaked towel clutched to her chest, using me to aid in covering her bare skin, and she looked like a cross between a cornered, wounded cat, and a terrified canine.

 

He deflated with a heavy sigh. His stubbornness had softened a small bit and the anger started to drain from him as he scratched into his thin beard. He sighed a second time before speaking again.

 

**“Alright. Kosuzu-chan… I’m sorry.”** he said, exposing his palms to her.  **“I overreacted. It’s just… I saw him here in his underwear, and you’re my little girl…”**   
  
She weakly smiled, but it was still terrifically disarming.  **“I know.”** she said to him. He softened further, and looked at me.   
  
**“Look… maybe I haven’t been so fair to you either. You’re still a suspicious bastard - showing up out of nowhere, using my tools to make strange metals, and forging a scythe out of it? Then to top it all off, you were making it for that death god at the River Sanzu - after which you just disappear again? I don’t trust you, not even a little bit.”** he said sternly, but continued before anyone could interject.  **“But she does.”** he pointed at Kosuzu.  **“Not just that, but she apparently cares for you enough to fight her own father over you. I don’t know what you are - I don’t even know if you’re a human - why you’re here, or where you came from… but if you hurt my daughter or bring her to tears like this again, I’ll kill you and feed you to the fish.”** he said, then watched me for a reply. I didn’t know what to say, so I took the opportunity to start providing a loose explanation of some things to the both of them, since they were both here. It was a little odd and awkward, given that one was naked and the other wanted to murder me, but I tried anyway.   
  
**“Well, to start, I** **_think_ ** **I’m an outsider. Probably. The last time I was here, I think I was dreaming - so I didn’t know if what I was experiencing at the time was real or not. I could very well be dreaming now, I have no idea. I don’t know for sure what’s reality and what’s a dream at this point because it all seems convincingly real to me - I’m just trying to go with the flow of things and make as many people happy as I can possibly manage, it’s just that Kosuzu has… taken a lot more importance than I could have realized. Like… where I come from, this place is a collection of stories, with many of the people - like Reimu or Marisa - being main characters. So… when I appeared here last time, and met Onozuka-san, seeing her having trouble with her equipment was very strange to me, so I simply felt the desire to help her in a way I knew that I could - thus, I showed up and asked to make use of your tools. Which I am very grateful for, by the way… Onozuka-san was very appreciative of the gift, too, which made me immensely happy, so thank you for allowing me to make it… but then I was somehow back in the outside world after that.”** I paused for a brief moment to indicate a time gap, then continued before anyone could interject. I looked down at Kosuzu - she was staring up at me, soaking up every single word like a sponge.  **“Yesterday morning, I woke up in the same place where I had disappeared from last time I was here - I was out in Muenzuka, under a tree where I had been relaxing with Onozuka-san. She wasn’t there, and I didn’t want to risk my life to pester her, so I came here to the village. I asked around, ended up lost, then stopped here to sell a few books so I could at least have a bit of currency to make use of. Before I could sell them, Kosuzu deduced something embarrassing about me, including the fact that I have extensive foreknowledge of Gensokyo and her residents - because the books I had were educational guides on how to play shogi, and ones that were dated for the current time in the outside world. I know that there is a certain someone here in Gensokyo whom is not only a Shogi master, devoted to making new ways to play, and also learning what she can about how shogi in the outside world has developed. Before I could sell the books to Kosuzu, she reminded me of this, and I realized that I could offer them as a gift to this person and maybe have the chance to play with them or learn from them.”**   
  
Kosuzu piped up.  **“Wait... you mean you** **_aren’t_ ** **attracted to her?”**   
  
**“Well… I am.”** I admitted. Her face looked extremely disappointed, but it was very quickly overruled by her curiosity. **“But remember what I said about having preconceptions?”**   
  
**“Oh, right, right. You didn’t really say much about that, but if I understand correctly, you don’t take the information of this place and the people here that you have acquired from the outside world to be fact until you have experienced it yourself - ah, that actually makes a lot of sense. Basically, you’re attracted to what you know** **_of_ ** **her, but because you don’t** **_actually_ ** **know her, you’re not acting on that.”** she theorized.   
  
**“Yes, precisely.”** I confirmed for her.   
  
**“Ooh, that’s smart.”** she said. Her eyes said that she had also reaffirmed her own attraction to me, but she said nothing. I just smiled to her, and she promptly beamed.

 

**“Information in the outside tends to get romanticized or blown out of proportion, so it’s hard to trust what you hear and take it at face value - because of that, I draw a separation between the information I know of these people and places from the media available to me out there, and the** **_actual_ ** **people and places themselves.”**   
  
**“Say… you knew who I was - does that mean you have information about me, too~?”** she said, practically humming with curiosity. She had clearly forgotten that she had nothing but a towel on.

 

**“Unfortunately, no. I** **_do_ ** **know however that information about you does exist. I hadn’t yet gotten to the story that you’re featured in, but I knew** **_of_ ** **you - at least… your first name, your appearance, and your occupation.”** I conceded. I somewhat expected her to be offended, saying something about how I didn’t bother to research her or something of the like. Much to the contrary however…   
  
**“Papa, did you hear!? They wrote a story about me in the outside world!”** she exclaimed, looking excitedly at him. He seemed bewildered by her reaction, in addition to the fact that her daughter had enough fame in the outside world to have a story written about her.   
  
**“But wait, how is that possible? She’s never been to the outside world.”** he inquired. His anger with me seemed to have subsided or at least given way for curiosity. I saw where she got it from now.   
  
**“Yeah… and you’re the first outsider I’ve ever met, really.”** she added.   
  
**“Honestly, I don’t really know. In the outside world, all of the official stories about Gensokyo and the people who live here are written by one man - a fellow named Jun’ya Ota - and until my meeting with Onozuka-san, it was pretty much universally accepted that he was creating it all himself as a fictional series of games, books, and music. Maybe he has a supernatural ability?”** I hypothesized. Kosuzu’s father shrugged it all off, as if to say that it was all too complicated for him to wrap his head around.

 

**“Well, all of that aside… seeing the two of you relaxed and chattering away…”** he said thoughtfully, stroking his chin.  **“Heh. Gaijin, don’t let her down. This might not be so bad after all.”** he said, a coy grin creeping across his face. Well, that’s where she got  _ that _ , too. I nodded acknowledgement to him. He looked to her.  **“Kosuzu. Don’t let this bastard out of your sight, even for a moment.”** This time she was the one to give a coy grin.

 

 **“Oh don’t you worry about that - with what I just heard, I’m going everywhere he goes, and doing everything he does.”** she turned her head to look up at me, this time directing her statements toward me. **“And just so you are well aware--”** she interrupted herself as a blush solidified on her face. **“I’m not going to give up very easily.”** she declared pursing her lips and looking at me sternly. **“I may have set you up on a date with Momiji, but I’m going to make a selfish request… don’t uh… that.”**  
  
I smiled and nodded, knowing what she meant. She was effectively extending her claim on me… and intimate engagements with me. I partially hoped Kosuzu wouldn’t call it quits - she had kinda gained my romantic interest overnight, and I somewhat wanted to encourage it’s growth. _Providing things don’t go so well with Momiji..._ **“Well to be fair, I suspect she’s more interested in your cookies than anything I could do or say. Why else would she change her mind, unless something were offered that she was interested in, hm?”**  
  
**“Hey, don’t you two forget that I’m here!”** the blacksmith said loudly and postured. **“I came to get that reference book, Kosuzu-chan.”**  
  
Kosuzu huffed. **“Can’t it wait? You barged in here and started yelling, so I haven’t been able to finish my bath!”** she complained.

 

**“Oh uh, yeah.”** something seemed to dawn on him, and he looked between her and I.  **“Wait. You two are very unusually nonchalant about your situation - you didn’t….”** he said, indicating my lack of pants and her lack of clothing altogether. I remembered something.

 

**“Oh yeah, give me back my pants!”** I said, looking at Kosuzu with assertiveness. She played coy.

 

**“I have no idea what either of you are talking about~”** she said, backing out of the room to return to the bath.  **“I’ll be back in just a bit - don’t break anything~”**

 

And she was gone. I grumbled, not wanting to be left alone with her father.

 

**“Why does she have your pants??”** he said, looking at me in an accusatory manner.

 

**“Because she thought it’d be funny to steal them.”** I said with a sigh, scratching my head.  **“My clothes need washed anyhow, but I have nothing else to wear. So… this happened.”** I indicated the current situation with a sweeping gesture.

 

**“I’m not sure I understand, but you best not have done anything illicit to my daughter, or I swear…”** he growled and shook his fist at me.

 

**“I assure you that I have done absolutely nothing against her wishes.”** I said simply. It was true, to the best of my knowledge.  **“She offered me a place to stay, and she has been the only person of the village to not shun me - I would be a fool to do anything against her wishes, really.”**

 

He simply gave a grunt, seemingly satisfied with the answer.

 

**“Good, you best keep that in mind, boy.”** he said, then sized me up, stroking his thick beard as he descended into thought.  **“So you just come and go from Gensokyo, huh?”**   
  
**“Hm?”** I said, not expecting conversation. I didn’t want to stand around in my underwear anymore, but I gave a reply anyhow.  **“Well, I don’t exactly have control over it. If I did, I would be spending much more time here, that’s for sure. I have been trying to come back by encouraging dreams, but without any luck until now - in fact, I’m supposed to be catching a ride when I wake up in the outside world. I may have come here because I was too stressed and worn out to** **_try_ ** **coming here…”**   
  
**“Yeah yeah, that’s all well and nice, I suppose. Are you able to go back when you want?”** he said.   
  
**“Well, no, not exactly. Last time I was here, I was here for about eight days, then when I next fell asleep after completing what I set out to do, I returned home. I don’t know how to do it manually, and though it is a mild worry, maybe I might never be able to return again, or if I do, I have no idea when.”** I said. I hadn’t really thought about it before now, but if I made things permanent with Kosuzu… what would happen if I woke up, or if I went back? I looked at her father.  **“Say, how much time passed between yesterday and the last time you had seen me?”**   
  
He looked at me oddly, then seemed to consider dates.  **“About six months.”**   
  
**“Hmm… that’s about how much time had passed between my previous dream and this one.”** I said mostly to myself, and thought about what this meant.  **“So time moves equally between Gensokyo and the outside world - but only when I am not in Gensokyo. Otherwise, it seems a few weeks can pass here in Gensokyo within the span of a single night’s rest.”** I mused aloud.

 

**“I have no idea what sort of nonsense you’re spewing. But if you’re going to just disappear for six months at a time, I don’t want you getting attached to my daughter, because you’ll only break her heart.”**

 

I had just thought of that a moment ago. It was worrisome, yes, but I figured that as long as I communicated effectively, she and I could work it out. Besides… it might be fun to try proper dating for once. I found myself smiling at the thought - and he also saw me grinning like a loon.   
  
**“What’s so funny about that, boy??”** he said, taking a step forward.   
  
**“N-nothing, sir! I was just thinking something, and I thought that it was nice.”** I said out of instinct.

 

**“Thinking** **_what_ ** **, boy?”** he pressured, seemingly looking for trouble.   
  
**“Tea.”** I said simply, and shrugged.  **“I was thinking that I’d like to have some tea.”** I left out the specifics regarding the circumstances under which I would best enjoy this tea, because it would just spike the poor man’s blood pressure. Even with the response I offered, he grunted again and crossed his arms. I came up with a means to escape this tense situation, and attempted to employ it.  **“If you’ll excuse me, I would like to find something suitable for maintaining my decency until I can re-acquire my trousers from your daughter.”** I said with a subtle bow, and turned to leave. He simply huffed and walked toward the counter, presumably to sit at the stool behind it. My means of escape having been confirmed, I didn’t linger to find out - I simply returned to Kosuzu’s bedroom. Knowing that I had nothing else here, I simply retrieved a clean bedsheet, and with some crafty folding and tying, made myself a makeshift toga of sorts. Once I had suitably and comfortably clothed myself in a sense, I returned downstairs and set about cleaning the kitchen - there was still flour everywhere… and her dress was still strewn across the counter.

 

_ Best not to let her father see that, eheh… _

 

I bundled it up and hid it in a cabinet. Not the best place, but it would have to suffice until her father had vacated. Evidence obscured, I resumed cleaning.

 

It wasn’t too much longer before Kosuzu came back from the bath, cheery and bright. I heard her talking with her father while I continued to wash surfaces in the kitchen, but their volume was just low enough that I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. Several minutes later, I heard the shop entrance close loudly, and soon after, Kosuzu entered the kitchen with a deep sigh before looking at me. She had decided to put on a simple kosode, which looked rather nice. Her expression quickly became quizzical as I looked at her - I was wrapped in a bedsheet, and had been scrubbing the floor with a damp cloth, but was now staring at her rather expectantly.   
  
**“What?”** I said, looking up at her. Her expression scrunched and she covered her mouth as she struggled to contain a laugh. I sat up and put my hands on my thighs, wearing a mock indignant expression. I decided to imitate her father’s earlier choice of words, trying my best to mimic his dialect.  **“What’s so funny, eh!?”** It didn’t sound much of anything like her father, but it still did exactly what I thought it would - the laugh exploded from her, preceded by a glorious snort. I had to cover my own mouth to contain a snicker, but then she tried to speak.

 

**“That was all so weird, I’m sorry - and then I come in here and you’re wearing a dress and scrubbing the floor, and I just couldn’t take it anymore, ahaha!”** she said and broke down into further laughter, clutching her midsection as she made her way over to me. I quelled the threat of my own laughter and swapped my expression to one of merriment.   
  
**“Just being a good little wife y’know~”** I said, adopting a feminine, somewhat foreign voice.  **“Gotta clean up this mess before we have more guests~”** I gestured theatrically as I spoke. She snorted again and fell into hysterics. I grinned and covered my mouth as a chuckle escaped me.   
  
**“Oh oh, I’m sorry dear, I really shouldn’t laugh like this, it’s so rude of me--pfhaha!”** she tried to apologize and calm herself, but in the end, she kept laughing anyway. There wasn’t much of the floor left to clean, so I just tossed the rag down nearby and stood up, dusting myself down. I reached over and took her shoulders, looking her in the eye as she peered at me curiously. I tried very hard not to grin and laugh as I chose my words, and put on my best mock upset face I could manage, once again trying to imitate her father’s voice. I managed a bit better this time.   
  
**“Kosuzu-chan! You can’t be having this gaijin boy here, he’s nothing but trouble! I mean really, there’s flour everywhere, your dress is hidden in a cabinet, you’ve apparently grown fond of stealing trousers, and I have a feeling that I** **_really_ ** **don’t want to see your bedroom! If you don’t get rid of him, you’re grounded missy!”** I shook my finger at her as if I were scolding her, but grinned when I finished my statement. She tried not to laugh, but given that she was still trying to recover from earlier hysterics, that didn’t work to well. When she finally recovered enough to get a word in edgewise, she spoke.   
  
**“You know, as funny as that is, I can’t say I’m all that appreciative of you mocking my father…”** she said, still choking back a giggle.   
  
**“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just trying to be silly, and I like it when you smile and laugh.”** I said without thinking. She clammed up, and a trace of pink lit her cheeks.   
  
**“You need to stop being so flattering, too.”** she said shyly. I stepped forward and embraced the little bookworm.   
  
**“I don’t know if I can do that, Dave.”** I said.   
  
**“Dave? What?”** she replied, and looked at me with unadulterated confusion, the reference flying right over her head.   
  
**“It’s a sort of joke… sorry, kinda slipped my mind that it wouldn’t quite be understood in Gensokyo.”** I said with a slight sigh.  **“It’s a reference to a movie.”**

 

**“....Movie?”** she inquired.   
  
_...Right. 1885 and all that. Wasn’t quite a widespread thing yet. _

 

**“It’s… a series of pictures displayed in such rapid succession as to give the illusion of movement. That’s more or less the basic mechanics of a movie or video - it’s gotten a lot more advanced since then, but if I’m not mistaken, it didn’t really become a widespread or popular format of media until well after Gensokyo was sealed.”** I attempted to explain.

 

**“Hmm… this sounds rather interesting.”**   
  
**“It can be - I’m not terribly interested in it myself, but there are a few movies I like. Just depends on how well the story was done.”**

 

**“I was just thinking that this could be a fascinating way to tell stories!”** she remarked with excitement, in a way that said she felt like she had come up with the idea herself and was amazed that it was already a thing. She rested her arms around my waist.

 

**“Like I said, it really depends on a variety of factors, such as the skill of the director, producers, writers, and actors. A lot of times, stories from books will be adapted into movies - sometimes this turns out amazingly well, and other times it turns out to be terrible.”** I said, still lightly embracing her.  **“There’s a book - called ‘Eragon’ - about a boy who finds the egg of a dragon and raises it. The boy and the dragon end up dragged into a war and they play a pivotal role in the war’s outcome. The book itself is incredibly well-written, but when it was made into a movie they omitted important things and almost completely changed the story… I couldn’t bear it.”**

 

**“Well that’s unfortunate. Are all movies like this?”**   
  
**“Heh, hardly. Like I said, some turn out [amazing] and have to be seen to be believed.”** I said, then thought a moment. What if I simply brought her to see a movie sometime? She had the same idea.   
  
**“I’d like to see one of these movies…”** she said. The words coming out in her voice brought a fresh realization to mind.   
  
How on earth would I bring someone from Gensokyo to the outside world? Would it work anything like how I had Kit’s dreamworld work in roleplay things? If I was in direct contact with her when I returned, would she be whisked away with me?   
  
**“Kit?”** She said lightly, putting her hands on my chest and giving a bit of pressure to get my attention.   
  
**“H-huh? Wha?”**   
  
She snickered.  **“You spaced out for a moment there. Are you alright?”**   
  
**“Yeah, I’m fine. Uh…”** I considered how I would approach the subject of me eventually returning to the outside world, but she beat me to the punch.   
  
**“You’re worried that this is a dream and that I’ll disappear when you wake up, right…?”**   
  
I simply nodded. Her smile faded a little bit, and she remained quiet, clearly picking her words before finally speaking, her eyes looking up to me with just the slightest amount of doubt.   
  


**“I uh… I don’t really have a way to prove to you that I’m real - I could explain to you that I have memories of growing up, and that I feel and experience the world, and that I have a consciousness… but there is nothing of that which could prove to you that I’m not just some dream. All I can do is tell you that I am me, and not a figment of your imagination - and then hope that you’ll believe it.”** she said, her voice thick with melancholy like she wasn’t even sure of her words herself.   
  
I frowned slightly, and brought my forehead down to meet with hers. Suddenly, her eyes lit up.   
  
**“Actually… you said you only knew my first name… right?”** she asked, hope back in her voice.   
  
I blinked.  **“Uh… right. I’ve never looked up your information because I didn’t want spoilers to the story that you’re in.”**   
  
She grinned broadly, triumph in her eyes.  **“Motoori. Motoori Kosuzu. And you better not forget that, if you ‘wake up’ and are back outside.”**   
  
I tilted my head. Then the realization dawned on me.   
  
She just told me something I didn’t already know. If this were a dream, the chances of that actually being her last name were so absolutely astronomical that it may as well be impossible. I would only be able to confirm or deny it for certain in the circumstance that I was awake and/or back outside, but the implications of obtaining new information in a dream or dream-like situation were phenomenal, and caused me to grin just as broadly as her. Suddenly, she gave me a gentle shove.   
  
“You need to get in the bath, quickly before it gets cold!” she said, and ushered me down the hall. “I’ll put your clothes in the washbin and bring you the yukata when I find it.”   
  
“O-okay…” I said just as she pushed me into the bathroom and pulled the sliding door closed behind me with a thud. I stood there for a moment and listened to her bare feet pad down the hall softly before contemplating the foreign bathroom I had just entered. I’d never used a Japanese bath before, but I knew enough to get undressed in the first little room, then to shower myself clean before getting into the warm water to relax for a few moments. So I did that much, only hesitating briefly when I realized that I would have to use a portion of Kosuzu’s shampoo.

**Author's Note:**

> Because this entry is only about 3/4ths complete and ADHD meant I never actually got around to finishing the remainder, so it’s all escaped my thinkpan... here is a summary of the missing 1/4th or so:
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
>  
> 
> After my bath…
> 
>  
> 
> I help her clean shop, the tailor arrives and takes measurements and inquires on colour and style (grey and plain is the decided selection), a successful batch of cookies is prepared and packaged, I basically idle around and keep an eye on the shop while Kosuzu runs errands and we wait for the tailor, I notify Momiji about the reason for the wait, then the tailor shows up in the early afternoon, equipping me with a grey, simple kimono...
> 
> And then Kosuzu and I both trek up the mountain to meet Momiji.
> 
> By mid afternoon, we arrive at a clearing, Momiji greets us and I basically shut down and have no idea how to handle the circumstances. Kosuzu quickly attempts to communicate the circumstances in my stead and all I can do is simply approach to offer the book and cookies as she does.
> 
> And then Aya drops in, right in the way, comments about my being a lunatic human who needs to be taught to fear what's beyond the village walls instead of arranging meetings with non-humans, and propels a bullet into my head, seemingly killing me on the spot.
> 
> And then I wake up.
> 
> ((I may alter these ending notes later.))


End file.
